UA Grad Student Goes to Oxford University with Clarendon Scholarship

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – University of Alabama graduate student Daniel Mullins of Montgomery recently received a Clarendon Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in England to pursue a doctorate degree in the cognitive science of religion.

Mullins represents one of the top 7 percent of applicants selected from the 2010 Clarendon Scholarship applicant pool. The scholarship, valued at $160,000, will cover tuition, fees and living expenses for three years.

Mullins is the fourth member of his family to attend UA. He is currently doing graduate work at the University in anthropology and religious studies.

“While this scholarship has the obvious benefit of affording me a world-class doctoral education, it is most significant as a testament to those who have taught me so much, those who believed in me and have taken risks on my behalf, and those who raised me with love and kindness,” Mullins says.

For his work with religious studies, Mullins has also been awarded second place by the National Honor Society for Religious Studies’ Theta Alpha Kappa Graduate Fellowship program. Along with the recognition, Mullins will receive a prize of $1,000.

Mullins will be leaving in late September for Oxford’s Michaelmas Term. In October, Mullins says he will also be taking a seat in the Centre for Anthropology & Mind within the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, which is one of the institutes within the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford University.

Mullins’ supervisor will be Dr. Harvey Whitehouse, who is one of the leading anthropologists in the world, Mullins says.

“Generally, the cognitive science of religion is an interdisciplinary field which combines insights from developmental and evolutionary psychology, anthropology, religious studies, philosophy, and neuroscience to scientifically investigate how our ordinary cognitive structures and tools may constrain the range of potentially successful concepts and, in so doing, support religious thoughts and actions,” Mullins explains.

Excited about all the opportunities Oxford has to offer, Mullins says he will miss him home, though. “While I look forward to this next phase in my education, I will sorely miss the friendships, sights and sounds of sweet home Alabama,” he notes.